From a very young age, the future sabedorlearns to recognise the diverse
types of plants found in the tropical forest environment. He or she must
become familiar with the ritual plants, their effects and their results in order
to ‘extract’ illnesses. This can include undertaking highly sacred journeys in
which he or she is expected to be able to recover the spirit of the patient
completely by investigating how the illness ‘arrived’. If thought necessary,
the illness or ‘bad energy’ may be returned to the enemy who sent it in the
first place.
The sabedoresrealise that there are illnesses that are outside their social
context. By recurring to the entheogens (see below) they are able to find the
cause of the illness. When the sabedoressuspect that the cause of the illness
is of viral or bacterial origin they say that these illnesses come from blancos
or white people. and as such should be treated by their doctors. In the same
way serious injuries such as fractures are referred to western medical
doctors.
The payé
The payé is a person who has achieved the ability to ‘see’ further than his
or her own environment, e.g. a mystic.
The shaman
The word shaman is derived from the Manchu–Tungus word sˇaman,Sha or
Sa(knowledgeable person) and man(a being who is dedicated to knowl-
edge).^7 Strictly speaking the term ‘shamanism’ is considered to describe a
Siberian and central Asian religious phenomenon.^8 However, the term
‘shaman’ has been adopted worldwide. With respect to the indigenous tribes
of the Amazon forest, the term is the one that westerners or incomers use –
the tribes themselves use their own terminology depending on their respec-
tive language and culture. They are the people who maintain the traditional
knowledge and who have taken responsibility for the spiritual and material
health of their pueblos. The knowledge held by these healers is based on
ancestral wisdom as well as constant experimentation with plants and other
healing materials, and is transmitted by the sabedores.
The true shaman is created from birth or, as is the case for the Uitoto
ethnic group, the parents and grandparents communicate with the future
shaman before birth, caressing and relating the Historiato the unborn
child.^9 The shaman is considered to be capable of curing both spiritual and
material illness by the movement of energies using plants, water, earth,
animals or wind depending on the illness presented. They manage sacred
plants and the energies of these plants, e.g. jinaka buinaima, which is one of
the many varieties of albahaca (see example below). In addition to these
‘true’ shamans there are other types of shaman who are not formed from
birth. These include, for example, individuals who have managed to survive
a serious illness, an animal attack or a lightning bolt, and from that point
68 |Traditional medicine